


parts to perform, hearts to warm

by owlinaminor



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 16:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10283357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: This whole thing reminds Yui of the beginning of a magical girl anime – heroine finds a strange book in the locker room of her school, heroine picks the book up and takes it home, heroine is enticed into accidentally summoning an evil spirit who drags her into the world of the dead and completely misses her English exam the next morning.  The school is quiet, almost as though it’s holding its breath - waiting for her to make a decision.Honestly, a trip to the spirit world is currently a much more enticing prospect to Yui than her English exam.  She stuffs the book into her backpack and heads out of the locker room.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nautilics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nautilics/gifts).



> rarepair exchange gift for [mandy](http://miyafuta.tumblr.com/). i kinda combined two of your prompts - i hope you like it! ❤
> 
> thank you [becky](https://twitter.com/dickaeopolis) for beta-ing, as always. and the title is from [magic to do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j97_y_z0jmU), from pippin.
> 
> **EDIT, 3/14:** becky pointed out that the line is actually "parts to perform, hearts to warm" NOT "arts to perform, hearts to warm." title has been changed accordingly.

There is a book in the back of the Karasuno girls’ volleyball team’s locker room.

It’s old, weathered, with a brown leather cover that might once have been red.  There are kanji inscribed into the spine that Yui doesn’t recognize, and a faded picture on the cover that is either supposed to be a strangely shaped flower or a growing flame – she can’t tell which.  She opens and flips past more unrecognizable kanji, ink illustrations of plants and animals and what might be stick-figure people, all handwritten and smudged with age.

The book isn’t a textbook, Yui knows that for sure.  And she doesn’t think it’s a novel or volume of poetry that someone might read for pleasure, either.  When she picks it up from the cool tile floor and sets it on the wooden bench, it feels heavier than its size – as though it’s weighed down with something old and unquantifiable.  It smells strange, too, not like dust or yellowed pages but sickly sweet, almost like a field of flowers.  And it’s oddly illuminated, in the late afternoon sunlight coming through the locker room window, as though all of the light is drawn towards it, dust motes flocking to it like moths towards a lamp at night.

Yui wonders who the book might belong to.  It must be someone on her team, but she can’t imagine who.  None of them is the type to carry a mysterious book around, much less the type to accidentally leave it in the locker room.  She starts to wonder if the book was dropped by some mischievous kami, or called into being by a reckless spirit.  The more she imagines it, the more likely it seems.

This whole thing reminds Yui of the beginning of a magical girl anime – heroine finds a strange book in the locker room of her school, heroine picks the book up and takes it home, heroine is enticed into accidentally summoning an evil spirit who drags her into the world of the dead and completely misses her English exam the next morning.  The school is quiet, almost as though it’s holding its breath - waiting for her to make a decision.

Honestly, a trip to the spirit world is currently a much more enticing prospect to Yui than her English exam.  She stuffs the book into her backpack and heads out of the locker room.

* * *

The next morning, there is a first-year in the back of the Karasuno girls’ volleyball team’s locker room.

This is a much less unusual sight than the previous afternoon’s book – it’s Yachi, the boys’ team’s junior manager.  She and the other manager often use the room when changing in and out of their gym clothes.  Yui hasn’t talked to Yachi much, as the boys’ schedule is fairly rigid and she’s usually in and out before Yui gets there, but she knows the younger girl is smart and hardworking, and cares a lot about her team.

So, Yachi’s presence isn’t unusual.  But her behavior is still erring on the side of strange – she’s on her hands and knees in the back of the room, running her fingers over the floor as though trying to scrub the tiles with her bare hands.  She looks like an odd kind of beetle in yellow and black, the pink scrunchie in her hair bouncing up and down as she moves.

As Yui takes a step closer, she can hear the younger girl muttering.  Her words are running together fluidly as a babbling brook, but Yui can make out a few phrases:

“Can’t believe I was such an idiot – can’t even be trusted with one thing – should be thrown out of the club – live on the streets – eat out of trashcans –”

“Good morning,” Yui says.

Yachi startles and bangs her head on the wall, her muttering abruptly paused.  She jumps to her feet, then awkwardly attempts to simultaneously rub her forehead and bow to Yui.

“Michimiya-san – I’m so sorry – I didn’t see you there – how much did you hear?”

“Not that much!” Yui replies, smiling down at the junior manager in an attempt to reassure her.  “But, I think, enough.”

“What do – um – what do you mean by that?”  Yachi’s face is growing pink as the bow in her hair.

“I think I have the thing you’re looking for,” Yui explains.

Yachi’s expression goes through several stages: confused, shocked, relieved.  Yui can practically watch the gears in her mind turning.

“A book?” the younger girl finally asks.  “Old, brownish-red, with hand-drawn pictures?”

Yui nods.  “Yeah, that’s the one!”

“Oh, my God, thank you.  Thank you so much.  Thank you _so much,_ ” Yachi says, each phrase punctuated with a bow.  “You’re my hero.  Thank you so much.”

Yui isn’t entirely sure what to do with the display, but after a moment, she reaches out and pats the young manager on the head.

“It’s in my room at home, I can give it to you tomorrow,” she tells Yachi.

Yachi shakes her head so violently, her bow nearly falls out.  “No – no, please don’t.  Please give it to Shimizu-san.  It’s her book, and I clearly can’t be trusted with it.”

Somehow, this makes sense.  Yui isn’t quite sure why it seems natural to her that such a strange book would belong to Shimizu Kiyoko, but now that she knows that to be the truth, it seems like the most likely explanation for everything.

“Alright,” Yui says.  “I can do that.  Should I meet her here?”

Yachi nods several times.  “I’ll tell her to meet you during lunch tomorrow! Thank you!”

She dashes out of the clubroom before Yui can say a word in response.

* * *

Yui waits in the back of the locker room.

The door clicks open just as the clock strikes noon, and Shimizu steps in with her backpack slung over one shoulder and her hair perfectly pulled back in a side ponytail.  Yui knows that she never wears makeup, but her face always seems too clear, too free from pimples or scars – Yui wonders if the book she’s currently holding has something to do with that.

“Hi,” Shimizu says, voice quiet and even as always.  She sets her bag down on one of the benches and holds out one arm.  Yui places the book into it – and as the volume changes hands, she feels strangely lighter, as though relieved of a responsibility she didn’t know she had taken on.

“I believe that’s yours,” Yui tells Shimizu, at a loss of anything else to say.  Shimizu always makes her ever so slightly nervous – it’s something about her clear skin, or her perfectly pulled back hair, or the way that she always appears to know exactly what she’s doing, every motion she makes attuned to some kind of cosmic grand plan.

“It is, yes,” Shimizu replies.  “Thank you for taking care of it.”

There is a pause, in which Yui wonders how to respond.   _You’re welcome_ seems too formal, but _No problem_ seems not formal enough.

But Shimizu relieves her of the decision by adding, “Would you like to see what it does?”

“What it does?” Yui echoes dumbly.

Shimizu nods.  “You took care of it.  You felt its weight.  You deserve to know what it can do”

And Yui feels once again like a character in a magical girl manga – but this time, she’s not sure if she’s the protagonist or if she’s someone else.  The school is holding its breath again, and the bright sunlight is shining directly on Shimizu, like a sign from another world.

“Okay,” Yui says.

And Shimizu smiles, sweet yet tinged with something sharp.  “Meet me in the forest after practice.”

* * *

The forest behind the school is almost spooky after sunset.

Yui finds Shimizu waiting there in the dusk, her shadow melting together with those of the evergreen trees.  She seems taller here, with her hair lifted by the breeze and her face illuminated by curious fireflies.  She seems like a witch in an old folktale, at home between the trees or between the worlds, calling upon ghosts with a flick of her finger.  Yui wonders if she really needs a book to perform magic.

“I’m so sorry I took so long!” Yui tells her as she approaches.  “I had to talk to Coach about the lineup for the upcoming tournament, and then somehow that turned into a conversation about what time we should leave and how long we should book the bus for and if we should have a team dinner afterwards, and -”

“It’s not a problem,” Shimizu replies.  “This is easier at dusk.”

Yui doesn’t have to ask what _this_ is, because Shimizu shows her – Shimizu holds the open book in her left hand and raises her right to the sky, then whispers something strange and dark in a voice that seems to echo both from inside and outside of her throat.

A flame alights in her hand.

The flame is tiny but bright, blue as a noonday sky.  Shimizu lowers her hand in front of Yui’s face, and Yui sees something like a reflection inside – a reflection of the forest during the day, or a reflection of another world, or perhaps a reflection of herself.  It changes color quickly, flashing green golden violet all the shades within a rainbow and some Yui doesn’t know names for, and then abruptly flickers out.

Yui stares at Shimizu’s face, then back at her hand – it looks like a normal hand, not one that has just held a fiery portal.  She grabs the hand instinctively – it doesn’t feel at all burnt.  The air doesn’t smell singed, either, but instead smells somehow fresher than before, as though wiped clean of all traces of humanity.

“That book was my mother’s, and her mother’s before her, and her mother’s before her,” Shimizu says.

“So, you practice –” Yui starts to say.

“Yes,” Shimizu replies.  “I know the ancient arts – keeping the calendar, and divination, and protection against spirits.  That flame you saw was a reflection of your soul.  It’s something I learned from my mother, although I’ve never been able to keep it alive long enough to find out anything useful.”

“That is so cool!” Yui exclaims.  “How do you – I mean, _what_ even – I mean –”

Shimizu shrugs.  “I’m not really sure entirely what it is either.  That’s just what my mother called it.  But it _is_ pretty cool,” she adds, smiling slightly in the fading light.

“It’s more than _pretty_ cool,” Yui says.  “But why did Yachi have your book?  Does she know – what did you call it – the ancient arts, too?”

“She’s learning a little bit,” Shimizu explains.  “I’m teaching her charms to ward off anxious spirits.  And if she’s successful, I’ll teach her other things.  She’s a good student – very nervous, but diligent.”

Yui rolls the ideas around in her mind – charms, divination, spirits.  It seems like another world, but a world just within reach, a world hovering at the edges of her fingertips.

“I could teach you, too, if you want,” Shimizu says.

Yui nods so enthusiastically, she almost dislodges her head from her shoulders.

* * *

Here’s the thing about Shimizu Kiyoko that scares Yui: she’s brilliant.

It’s not just that she’s the smartest girl in the year, acing exams as though it’s as easy as tracing a few characters onto a page, and it’s not just that she’s able to conjure flame in the palm of her hand.  No, it’s something of both of those things, and it’s that she’s somehow brighter than ever other person that Yui knows – as though she reflects more light than the average human being, or as though she’s carrying a tiny silver moon inside her.

Shimizu is brilliant, and yet she smiles at Yui when they pass each other in the hallways, and she waves for Yui to join her table at lunch, and she meets Yui in the forest after practice.  She teaches Yui to speak to the spirits, in sharp whispers and plaintive songs.  She teaches Yui to twine leaves and twigs and flowers together into charms that can ward off illness or nervousness or bad luck.  She teaches Yui to reach inside herself and pull out the brightness concealed there.

And sometimes, in the forest, Shimizu will touch Yui’s hand or hold her arm or set a gentle finger on her waist to guide her, and Yui will feel the _want_ growing in deep within her gut, hot and wet as a flower awakening on the first hot day of spring.

Maybe it’s not so much Shimizu’s brilliance that scares Yui as it is the not-quite-unbreachable distance between them.

* * *

There is a note in the back of the Karasuno girls’ volleyball team’s locker room.

Yui finds it tucked in her locker, underneath her uniform jacket and between her two canvas shoes.  It’s folded carefully into perfect sixths, and it has her name inscribed on the outside in even handwriting she would recognize anywhere.

Yui opens the note too quickly, her heart in her throat – nearly tears it in half in her eagerness to get at the message –

_Your smile is more magical than any book._

Her heart picks back up at double the speed, and her limbs start moving almost of their own accord – racing out of the locker room and to the forest behind the school.

Shimizu is waiting there, hands in her pockets.  Her face is tinged red as a wild rose.  It could be a reflection of the sunset, but Yui doesn’t think it is.

She slows a couple of meters away from Shimizu and takes the last few steps in even paces.

“That was really romantic!” Yui tells her, unable to hold back her bright smile.  “Like, _really_ romantic.”

Shimizu turns to see her – and her face really _is_ red.  It’s kind-of an off-putting red, actually - all uneven and splotchy.  But Yui thinks it doesn’t make Shimizu any less beautiful.

“I’m sure you could come up with something better,” Shimizu says.

Yui takes one last step and loops her arms around Shimizu’s neck, grinning.  “I doubt it.”

Shimizu smiles back, then closes the distance.

The first time they stood together in this forest, Shimizu showed Yui a reflection of her future.  This time, Shimizu shows Yui a reflection of her present – and this, Yui thinks, running her fingers through Shimizu’s hair and catching Shimizu’s waist in her other hand – this is better.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor) / [tumblr](http://owlinaminor.tumblr.com/)


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